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I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me. I found that

I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me. I found that it did nothing to satiate my appetite and that I'd be hungry, bloated and gassy all day long. The bloating and gas were incredibly uncomfortable and never really subsided. Eschewing the normal 3 meals a day routine and doing 5 meals didn't seem to help. Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. The powder was messy and would coat whatever surface I prepared it on with a fine dusting. The liquid smelled unpleasant after a while and eventually I started to smell like it when I sweat. The liquid was basically an oil and solid particulate suspension so if you spilled it on anything it was difficult to clean up because the particles would work their way into fabric. Not such a problem for clothes but more so for furniture or car seats. From a social perspective it really sucked because meals are a time to socialize it was awkward to go out with people and not order anything. I gradually moved to half days which actually curbed the weight gain I was seeing and eventually motivated me to give it up.

brandonmenc 10y ago
> Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. You were eating too many calories. 2500 for maintaining body weight is a lot. Perhaps you were overestimating your activity level?
- cptskippy 10y ago
  I'm 6'5" and ~220lbs, every calorie calculator I've tried recommends 2400+ calories a day to maintain body weight with a sedentary lifestyle. At the time I tried this experiment I was running close to 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Estimates like 2400kcal might work if you have a physically demanding job 40 hours a week. Running 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing will lift cause you to expend only maybe 500kcal a day extra on average, but if you spend the rest of that time being sedentary, you're still unlikely to end up at any more than 2000-2200kcal. Overall I think the typical old advice of 2500kcal for men and 2000 for women are dangerously out of tune with modern lifestyles. As your own results demonstrated, that's often way too high. Measure, weigh, adjust - ultimately the only thing that will tell you what the right amount of calories is for you is to actually adjust your intake and check what happens.
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      Source?
      - kaishiro 10y ago
        Your own body? If you weren't losing weight that should be enough of a feedback cycle to tell you what you need to know.
      - enraged_camel 10y ago
        Um, you were eating (or claiming to be eating) X calories a day and you were gaining weight. That should be the only "source" you need.
        vidarh 10y ago
        > or claiming to be eating This, to me, is another reason why employing a feedback cycle and only relying on those estimates as a first approximation makes most sense. The estimates won't take into account how dilligent you are: do you estimate how many meatballs there is per 100 calories, or do you guesstimate based on measuring once? do you count the calories in your sugar free chewing gum (it's certainly not calorie free)? do you measure out the amount of ketchup you put on your food and count the calories? And so on. With a feedback cycle hopefully you're roughly consistent, and if you adjust on a weekly basis based on how you're doing you'll hopefully also counter-act your own self-sabotage (e.g. it's oh-so-easy to subconsciously take more of anything you've decided doesn't need measuring, like the above mentioned ketchup, or find yourself suddenly chewing 10x as much chewing gum...) (at the same time, one of the benefits of these shakes certainly is that if you adhere strictly at least for periods, you take dilligence out of the picture; though you still need a feedback cycle, as e.g. differences in how much energy you have can easily affect your activity levels and so change your rate)
  - brandonmenc 10y ago
    Not trying to attack here - I'm seriously trying to help - but you must have been consuming calories you weren't aware of. For example, in my own experience counting calories, oil is always the killer - it's so calorie dense and sneaks into everything when you're cooking. You need 2400 calories a day to maintain weight, were supposedly consuming 2000, and were (off the cuff) burning close to 1000 a day from running and other activity. There's no way you'd gain weight at 220 lbs effectively consuming 1000 calories a day. I've lost weight eating more than that at 180 lbs body weight. Counting calories is very difficult. It's so easy to over- or under-estimate.
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      I was consuming one 2000 calorie packet of Soylent a day and nothing else. No snacks, no cheating, just the one a day.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      > You need 2400 calories a day to maintain weight No, his sources estimates 2400 calories a day. You're right to question if he's consumed more, but taking his claims at face value, they match my own experience and many, many anecdotes I've seen over the year to indicate that advice of maintenance levels around that range are way too high for most people. > and were (off the cuff) burning close to 1000 a day from running and other activity. I very much doubt that. My own off the cuff estimate is ~500 calories a day for that activity. > There's no way you'd gain weight at 220 lbs effectively consuming 1000 calories a day. I've lost weight eating more than that at 180 lbs body weight. More like 1500 by my account, possibly more depending on the intensity of his exercise. And if you assume lack of substantial muscle-weight in that, it matches pretty well with my own experience from before I started lifting weights - I had diets where I had to drop to around 1200/day before it made a noticeable difference. Once I started adding muscle, I could get away with more, but not a lot more. I don't doubt your numbers, but to me they'r why we shouldn't listen to estimates, but measure, as activity level (all day long, not just during exercise) and body composition makes the error margin on estimates of metabolic rate crazily high.
      - brandonmenc 10y ago
vidarh 10y ago
> Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. 2500kcal is only suitable for people living a very active lifestyle or exercising a lot. Note that going to the gym for 45minutes 3 times a week is not being active. When I spent an hour lifting heavy weights 5 times a week, my weight was stable at around 2500kcal. The reality is that unless you work as a construction worker or other type of job that keep you active most of the day and/or exercise a lot (my 5x a week were heavy compound powerlifting lifts), chances are you need to adjust those recommendations down substantially. Ultimatly the only thing you can do is to gradually lower your intake until you're losing weight. That you were adding weight at 2000kcal is not that surprising. I've not tried Soylent, but I've trued Huel, and compared to what you described it seems a lot more pleasant, and more importantly, if anything I've found it hard to eat enough on it because it fills me up so much. The biggest problem for me in using it as much as I'd like is that filling me up doesn't stop me craving food - it's a reward thing for me.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  Every source I've found indicates that my maintenance caloric intake should be 2400+ calories. Where do you get your information from?
  - iopq 10y ago
    Personally, I tracked my calories for 6 months and found out whether I'm losing or gaining weight. I averaged 2700 and didn't appreciably gain or lose. I cut down to 1300 and started losing weight.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    A steady stream of accounts like yours of "it says my intake should be X, but when I ate X I added weight". In your own case you've yourself proven that the sources you've found are wrong or at least have a ridiculous error margin, given that you've measured that your maintenance intake is much lower than your sources claim it should be. Meanwhile it's exceedingly rare to see the opposite. One of the big issues appears to be that people take advice based on a belief they are more active than they are. E.g. as I mentioned elsewhere, pretty much anyone in an office job is sedentary by default, even if they spend most of their spare time being active.
brilliantcode 10y ago
I love how people are attacking those who tried Soylent and didn't like it lol. How many of you guys have invested in Soylent and now worried it's not going as you've planned? It's 2017, and people still prefer to eat food with friends and families. Soylent sure changed the world!
- yourthrowaway2 10y ago
  Don't blame Soylent bro! They just want to end world hunger.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
yourthrowaway2 10y ago
> The liquid smelled unpleasant after a while and eventually I started to smell like it when I sweat When is someone going to disrupt the smell-o-vision for the internet market?

brandonmenc 10y ago

> Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. You were eating too many calories. 2500 for maintaining body weight is a lot. Perhaps you were overestimating your activity level?

cptskippy 10y ago
I'm 6'5" and ~220lbs, every calorie calculator I've tried recommends 2400+ calories a day to maintain body weight with a sedentary lifestyle. At the time I tried this experiment I was running close to 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing.
- vidarh 10y ago
  Estimates like 2400kcal might work if you have a physically demanding job 40 hours a week. Running 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing will lift cause you to expend only maybe 500kcal a day extra on average, but if you spend the rest of that time being sedentary, you're still unlikely to end up at any more than 2000-2200kcal. Overall I think the typical old advice of 2500kcal for men and 2000 for women are dangerously out of tune with modern lifestyles. As your own results demonstrated, that's often way too high. Measure, weigh, adjust - ultimately the only thing that will tell you what the right amount of calories is for you is to actually adjust your intake and check what happens.
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    Source?
    - kaishiro 10y ago
      Your own body? If you weren't losing weight that should be enough of a feedback cycle to tell you what you need to know.
    - enraged_camel 10y ago
      Um, you were eating (or claiming to be eating) X calories a day and you were gaining weight. That should be the only "source" you need.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        > or claiming to be eating This, to me, is another reason why employing a feedback cycle and only relying on those estimates as a first approximation makes most sense. The estimates won't take into account how dilligent you are: do you estimate how many meatballs there is per 100 calories, or do you guesstimate based on measuring once? do you count the calories in your sugar free chewing gum (it's certainly not calorie free)? do you measure out the amount of ketchup you put on your food and count the calories? And so on. With a feedback cycle hopefully you're roughly consistent, and if you adjust on a weekly basis based on how you're doing you'll hopefully also counter-act your own self-sabotage (e.g. it's oh-so-easy to subconsciously take more of anything you've decided doesn't need measuring, like the above mentioned ketchup, or find yourself suddenly chewing 10x as much chewing gum...) (at the same time, one of the benefits of these shakes certainly is that if you adhere strictly at least for periods, you take dilligence out of the picture; though you still need a feedback cycle, as e.g. differences in how much energy you have can easily affect your activity levels and so change your rate)
- brandonmenc 10y ago
  Not trying to attack here - I'm seriously trying to help - but you must have been consuming calories you weren't aware of. For example, in my own experience counting calories, oil is always the killer - it's so calorie dense and sneaks into everything when you're cooking. You need 2400 calories a day to maintain weight, were supposedly consuming 2000, and were (off the cuff) burning close to 1000 a day from running and other activity. There's no way you'd gain weight at 220 lbs effectively consuming 1000 calories a day. I've lost weight eating more than that at 180 lbs body weight. Counting calories is very difficult. It's so easy to over- or under-estimate.
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    I was consuming one 2000 calorie packet of Soylent a day and nothing else. No snacks, no cheating, just the one a day.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    > You need 2400 calories a day to maintain weight No, his sources estimates 2400 calories a day. You're right to question if he's consumed more, but taking his claims at face value, they match my own experience and many, many anecdotes I've seen over the year to indicate that advice of maintenance levels around that range are way too high for most people. > and were (off the cuff) burning close to 1000 a day from running and other activity. I very much doubt that. My own off the cuff estimate is ~500 calories a day for that activity. > There's no way you'd gain weight at 220 lbs effectively consuming 1000 calories a day. I've lost weight eating more than that at 180 lbs body weight. More like 1500 by my account, possibly more depending on the intensity of his exercise. And if you assume lack of substantial muscle-weight in that, it matches pretty well with my own experience from before I started lifting weights - I had diets where I had to drop to around 1200/day before it made a noticeable difference. Once I started adding muscle, I could get away with more, but not a lot more. I don't doubt your numbers, but to me they'r why we shouldn't listen to estimates, but measure, as activity level (all day long, not just during exercise) and body composition makes the error margin on estimates of metabolic rate crazily high.
    - brandonmenc 10y ago

vidarh 10y ago

> Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. 2500kcal is only suitable for people living a very active lifestyle or exercising a lot. Note that going to the gym for 45minutes 3 times a week is not being active. When I spent an hour lifting heavy weights 5 times a week, my weight was stable at around 2500kcal. The reality is that unless you work as a construction worker or other type of job that keep you active most of the day and/or exercise a lot (my 5x a week were heavy compound powerlifting lifts), chances are you need to adjust those recommendations down substantially. Ultimatly the only thing you can do is to gradually lower your intake until you're losing weight. That you were adding weight at 2000kcal is not that surprising. I've not tried Soylent, but I've trued Huel, and compared to what you described it seems a lot more pleasant, and more importantly, if anything I've found it hard to eat enough on it because it fills me up so much. The biggest problem for me in using it as much as I'd like is that filling me up doesn't stop me craving food - it's a reward thing for me.

cptskippy 10y ago
Every source I've found indicates that my maintenance caloric intake should be 2400+ calories. Where do you get your information from?
- iopq 10y ago
  Personally, I tracked my calories for 6 months and found out whether I'm losing or gaining weight. I averaged 2700 and didn't appreciably gain or lose. I cut down to 1300 and started losing weight.
- vidarh 10y ago
  A steady stream of accounts like yours of "it says my intake should be X, but when I ate X I added weight". In your own case you've yourself proven that the sources you've found are wrong or at least have a ridiculous error margin, given that you've measured that your maintenance intake is much lower than your sources claim it should be. Meanwhile it's exceedingly rare to see the opposite. One of the big issues appears to be that people take advice based on a belief they are more active than they are. E.g. as I mentioned elsewhere, pretty much anyone in an office job is sedentary by default, even if they spend most of their spare time being active.

brilliantcode 10y ago

I love how people are attacking those who tried Soylent and didn't like it lol. How many of you guys have invested in Soylent and now worried it's not going as you've planned? It's 2017, and people still prefer to eat food with friends and families. Soylent sure changed the world!

yourthrowaway2 10y ago
Don't blame Soylent bro! They just want to end world hunger.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

yourthrowaway2 10y ago

> The liquid smelled unpleasant after a while and eventually I started to smell like it when I sweat When is someone going to disrupt the smell-o-vision for the internet market?